This course explores 20th-century protest movements in the United States, with a special focus on the ways in which the visceral racial experiences and emotions of the nation's citizens collided and produced different forms of public rage, rebellion, backlash, and resistance. Using a variety of interdisciplinary primary and secondary documents, we will examine these historical moments to better understand their influence on some of the major political processes of the modern United States. We will also analyze the state's attempt to manipulate and harness racialized community rage. Topics include civil rights, urban uprisings, ethnic and racial nationalism, suburban socioeconomic revolts, religious conservatism, and contemporary political rebellions of the left and the right. How have various protest movements critiqued and shaped modern public institutions and governments? How were these community movements influenced by the calculated maneuvers of the state? Did grassroots rage translate into tangible results and increased power, and if so, for whom?

Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia BookstoreDonna Jean Murch, LIVING FOR THE CITY: MIGRATION, EDUCATION, AND THE RISE OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)Charles M. Payne, I'VE GOT THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM: THE ORGANIZING TRADITION AND THE MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM STRUGGLE, 2nd ed. (Berkely: University of California Press, 2007)Gerald Horne, FIRE THIS TIME: THE WATTS UPRISING AND THE 1960s (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 1997)Matthew J. Countryman, UP SOUTH: CIVIL RIGHTS AND BLACK POWER IN PHILADELPHIA (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, DETROIT: I DO MIND DYING: A STUDY IN URBAN REVOLUTION, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012)Nikhil Pal Singh, BLACK IS A COUNTRY: RACE AND THE UNFINISHED STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY (Cambridge: Harvard University)

Examination and Assignments: Weekly response papers, two short papers, one long final paper